Effects of Transitional Bilingual Education, Two-Way Bilingual, and Structured English Immersion Programs and the Literacy and Oracy of Spanish-Dominant Children*

Grantee: Johns Hopkins University

Key Staff:
Robert Slavin
Margarita Calderon
Nancy Madden

Research Questions:

• What are the relative effects of teaching reading, writing, and oracy to Spanish-dominant students in structured English immersion versus transitional bilingual education or two-way bilingual education, from kindergarten to grade 3, on English literacy, oracy, vocabulary, comprehension, writing, and other variables?
• How do the effects of structured English immersion versus the other two instructional strategies vary according to child and home factors such as race, gender, initial skills in Spanish and English, initial cognitive skills, home language use, family structure, and family resources?
• How do the effects of structured English immersion versus the other two instructional strategies vary according to school and teacher factors such as quality of program implementation, classroom oral language environment, teacher language proficiency, use of Spanish or English in parts of the day other than literacy periods, and district and state policy environments?

Design: Approximately 545 Kindergarten children who are Spanish-dominant English language learners have been randomly assigned to conditions within schools. Three conditions are being studied: structured English immersion; transitional bilingual education; and, two-way bilingual education. Two sets of schools have been recruited. In one set, a total of 387 students in 10 schools have been randomly assigned to receive either the structured English immersion or the transitional bilingual program. In the second set, approximately 158 students in 5 schools have been randomly assigned to either structured English immersion or two-way bilingual instruction. The first cohort of Kindergarten students will be followed over a four-year period, Kindergarten to Grade 3, and will have fully transitioned to English only instruction by the end of the study. To increase statistical power, the study sample will be increased by adding new Kindergarten cohorts in each year of the study.

Duration: 6 years (October 1, 2003–September 30, 2009)

Reports: The final report on this study will be announced on http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/.

Current Status: (August 2008) The fourth year of data collection through the end of third grade is now complete. This data has been entered and is currently being cleaned and added to the existing dataset. Analyses will begin later this summer.

* This grant was awarded under the English Language Acquisition Evaluation Program, CFDA 84.305P